Investors in Grand Designs' McCloud property projects face huge losses

Investors in the TV property guru Kevin McCloud’s eco-friendly housing ventures face losing nearly all their money.

Between 2013 and 2017, McCloud wooed investors with crowdfunding schemes that promised returns of up to nine per cent a year from his Happiness Architecture Beauty (HAB) homes businesses.

The UK Guardian reported - in an extraordinary parallel with his TV series participants – HAB has been hit by budget overruns, construction problems and relationship bust-ups.

McCloud, 60, has presented the Channel 4 series Grand Designs since its launch in 1999.

He set up HAB Housing in 2007 “to challenge the way identikit volume housing was built in the UK”.

Around 650 investors put in £1.9 million in 2013, which at the time was a crowdfunding world record.

Those investors are yet to receive a penny, however the investors who put money in to the project in 2017 are likely to be worse off.

As a worse case scenario, HAB have said those who put a total of £2.4million into one bond two years ago will lose between 74 per cent and 97 per cent.

A recent letter warns that HAB Land would be unable to continue to trade without a further injection of funds.

McCloud himself sent out a separate letter in July to the 2013 crowdfunding investors stating that “the numbers” were “serious”, adding: “HAB Housing currently owes just under £1.6 million to HAB Land.

He also faces demands for repayment from a restructuring company that has taken control of part of his business.